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Wiktionary The Free Dictionary

avoid

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English avoiden , from Anglo-Norman avoider , Old French esvuidier ("to empty out"), from es- + vuidier , from Vulgar Latin *vocitāre < Vulgar Latin *vocitum , ultimately related to Latin vacuus . Displaced native Old English forbūgan (literally "to bend away from").

Pronunciation

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Verb

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avoid (third-person singular simple present avoids , present participle avoiding , simple past and past participle avoided )

  1. (transitive ) To try not to meet or communicate with (a person); to shun.
  2. (transitive ) To stay out of the way of (something harmful).
    I avoided the slap easily.
    One town was flooded from the storm, while the other town avoided the storm.
  3. (transitive ) To keep away from; to keep clear of; to stay away from.
    I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
  4. (transitive ) To try not to do something or to have something happen.
  5. (transitive , obsolete ) To make empty; to clear.
  6. (transitive , now law ) To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
    • 1395, Wycliffe Bible ‎[1] , Galatians 3:17:
      But Y seie, this testament is confermed of God; the lawe that was maad after foure hundrid and thritti yeer, makith not the testament veyn to auoide awei the biheest.
    • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande [...] , Dublin: [...] Societie of Stationers, [...], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland [...] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: [...] Society of Stationers, [...] Hibernia Press, [...] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC, page 233:
      [...] how can those graunts of the Kings be avoyded, without wronging of those lords, which had those lands and lordships given them?
  7. (transitive , law ) To defeat or evade; to invalidate.
    • 1768, William Blackstone, "Of Pleading", in Commentaries on the Laws of England , book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: [...] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 309–310:
      [...] in an action for trespassing upon land whereof the plaintiff is seised, if the defendant shews a title to the land by descent, and that therefore he had a right to enter, and gives colour to the plaintiff, the plaintiff may either traverse and totally deny the fact of the descent; or he may confess and avoid it, by replying, that true it is that such descent happened, but that since the descent the defendant himself demised the lands to the plaintiff for term of life.
  8. (transitive , obsolete ) To emit or throw out; to void.
  9. (transitive , obsolete ) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
  10. (transitive , obsolete ) To get rid of.
  11. (intransitive , obsolete ) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
  12. (intransitive , obsolete ) To become void or vacant.

Usage notes

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Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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to try not to be hit; to give way
to keep away from
to try not to do something
(law) to defeat or evade; to invalidate

Further reading

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  • "avoid", in OneLook Dictionary Search.

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